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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen M IrwinOnyi Nwabineli|title=The DarkeningAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book has Anuri spent her childhood on display to the 'S' word written all over it. Noworld, not sex thanks to her step- supernatural. Somother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, itwhere she posted every step of Anuri's got all things a bit spookychildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, not-quite-rightbasically, strange coincidencesmonetary gain. They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit that when I read the blurb on the Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back cover with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groansuing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Not really my cup of tea. But I'm open-minded Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and I'll read anything oncereceiving money from them for doing so. IMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia'm glad I did. Irwin is Australians online empire. For some reason I haven't read too many books by Australian authorsCan she save her sister, so I was keen to get reading.and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751543969</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Kaplow1529153298|title=Me and Orson WellesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Samuels sees everything in terms of a performanceIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, through the rose-tinted lens of the theatrical celebrities he listens but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to on move the radiofamily 'Down South'. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway stage through When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a chance encounter with Orson Wellesfrightening, foreign place, it seems as if all his dreams may be about to come truebest avoided. He goes from being the guy that all For Miv, the girls see as a move would mean leaving her best friend, one of the bookish kids at schoolSharon, and she'll do anything to the glamour of mingling with stars of the stageprevent that. We follow Richard She's struggle to balance this newly discovered wonderland and his school life, not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to mention his disapproving motheranyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540193</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1035906708|title=The Man on the MoorDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer We tend to think of 1913 relations with Germany were deteriorating steadilyMaria Callas as Greek, but there didn't seem she was born to be any connection with the international situation when a London clerkGreek parents in Manhattan, George StephensNew York, was found dead in a country lane on the edge of Dartmoor. The moor had been his passion December 1923 and he'd always been keen only moved to escape London and return to DevonAthens when she was thirteen. It Her original surname was an odd death Kalogeropoulos but in all probability her father changed it would have been put down as an accident if Georgeto 'Callas's mother had not announced that George was to make it more manageable in the son of the KaiserStates. Despite When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her fondness for gin the story voice - she told was oddly compelling and when it was linked up with raised under the fact that two German officers had been staying at Nazi occupation by a nearby farm George's death seemed less mother who mercilessly exploited her and less like an accidentmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances DayAlexander McCall Smith|title=Dead Cat With FirelighterThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the world of modern artonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. A couple who met at art college are on Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the verge of breaking upbusiness, as her success at fine arts Ness is only bettered by his sudden rise planning to take a trip to Canada to fame in the world get away for a while. Katie is coming out of his conceptuala break up with a bad boyfriend, pompous bits of (almost literally) rubbish and nothingso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. We're also in the world of the wannabe stars and starletsAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, trying thanks to make 44 Scotland Street and the jump from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to Hollywoodcharm. And Katie has no experience in the background running a business, or in both instances, are gurumatch-type Svengalismaking, pulling stringsbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - there's always her very helpful (and a lot more - to get their charges rather handsome) neighbour, William, to fame. And lend a bit of contract killing and murder on the side.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Billy HopkinsDean Koontz|title=Tommy's WorldThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in CollyhurstBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, one of the poorerhe loses his fiancee, inner-city suburbs of Manchesterand his house gets trashed. His father had quite a good job Oh, and there wasn't someone has delivered a lot of money really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to spare but Tommy remembered the his home as being filled with love , and laughterit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in the form of worldly goodsis a nice person. A really nice person. All So fortunately for Benny it turns out that was the delivery to change when his father died of spinal meningitis and he and his mother had house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to move into cheaper lodgingshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Even that tenuous security wasn't Spike is going to last for long – his mother died take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of a heart attack in her thirtiesBenny's enemies, leaving Tommy an orphan before if he was eight years old, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane ChamberlainKatherine Howe|title=The Bay at MidnightA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts properly when Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a letter young age. When she hears there is discoveredto be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. It will have devastating consequences for several families - Enthralled and life will never be horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the same againhands of two vicious pirates. ApparentlyShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the wrong person was convicted for notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a murdercabin boy. Moreover, She soon finds herself in the writer thick of this letter appears to know who did commit this crime. Unfortunatelythings when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the writer dies before able to make contact with the policeocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hazel McHaffie 1471180158|title=Right to DieMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just onceJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, but for Naomi, Adama man who's death is just a control freak with all the beginningsubtlety of a half brick. Coming across Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his personalproblems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, private diary of his the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time from diagnosis off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to subsequent demise, she is forced go to relive school. Missed shifts or the awful months during which his body began need to be away on time to betray him pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and his will put in the wrong. It was going to come to live was replaced with a will to die...on his own termshead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Morag JossB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Night FollowingRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the discovery that her husband has been having an affairstrange, a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lanereclusive Bear, killing Ruth Mitchellhe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, an elderly cyclist. The woman doesn't wait for the police to arrive; she goes home and parks her car in the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognition. When her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes itforests of Washington's been done to punish him and he packs his bagsOlympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a few days the woman goes to the home of the dead woman; she doesn't go to the doorbrief sojourn in human company, but from and armed with only a hidden spot nearby she can see the widowerpirate radio transmitter, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping well. Wracked with guilt, the woman makes Petr goes on a decision: journey through the only way she can atone for her actions is to step into forest, broadcasting the shoes of the dead womanstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonSarah Marsh|title=The Haunting A Sign of Hill HouseHer Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There was After a bout of scarlet fever as a time before Stephen Kingchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. There was time before ''The Shining''Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. There was Living in a time when 'horror' the use of sign language was not rooted in bloodseen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, guts and gorebut physically restrained from signing. I owe a slight apology to Mr KingFrom here, because along with she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the gutsier side of deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the genresame time, I will own that he Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a master at suspensecomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian BarnesB0BC3YTCMR|title=Staring at the Sun|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle Leslie, hyacinths and golf tees. It's perhaps best forgotten, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large in her life - mostly on the golf course - until the War comes and he runs away to America. He's replaced by Tommy Prosser, a grounded pilot who once saw the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michael, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroom. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGood Girls Die|author=Russell Celyn Jones|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounce. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there for a customary break, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancer. He manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivals. And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up. It's a big stone that hides him, but he leaves a very awkward trail This story is not for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne Rice|title=Angel Time|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Toby O'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for music, history and playing his beloved lute. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago. One day while on a 'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become the Angel's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1472263936|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and livingIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, quite literallyGreek by birth, in a pigstyhad left the family home and refused to return, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents but Mary and working in a bookshop. ItHamish (Helena's not quite how life was supposed to turn outparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying Her trip to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the provinces is not as bad as she would like first of several annual visits. She grew to believelove her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and desperately attempting to talk his mother out frightened - of her quest grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over Junta and expected his increasingly frequent visits family to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still uphold his values but saw no reason to comeaccommodate them. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it His prejudices included Helena's going to be a tough year for the Moles, red hair and theregreen eyes - inherited from her father's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxDean Koontz|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaAfter Death|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set in IndiaMichael Mace, familiar territory for TherouxHead of Security, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of at a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pattop secret biological research facility, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating is among 55 people who die when a story of virus is released in a mystery of bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a dead body makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a hotel leads sense that something very, very bad has happened to him to release – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his creativity in very unexpected waysdead friends and former colleagues. The story As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is more something different about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerhim; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she Michael isn't ''Michael''s letting on?anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave EggersB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Wild ThingsGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet MaxThe village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. When I say he sometimes gets And the wrong end villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the stick about adultsforest provides heat and warmth, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendroofs on homes, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revengeand even gallows, I am certainly understating the factsif needed. He The fear of being buried alive is a bit of a rascal to say an existential superstition in the least. But all village and that might change when he finds himself travelling to is the reason Volushka, a strange land drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kinga man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harlan CobenB0BYF82CXT|title=Tell No OneSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've been meaning to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's work, because if the reviews are to be believed Bill and you Amanda are living in a fan semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of the 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thrillerboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the man couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is quite simply not capable of turning out a duff novel. But you know how what it isseems, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books to be read and reviewed, I just somehow hadntheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''t managed to give him my full attention. Until now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie Nickels Shalini Boland|title=Another Kind of LovingThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mike Hennessy was Alice and Seth are a journalist whose speciality was the war-torn parts of the world and October 1992 found him match made in Sarajevo visiting a children's home to get a story. The orphanage was on the right side of town – away from the main barrage – but it had few other advantagesheaven. There was no heat and little food or waterHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, but it was here that he found Jasminkaaccomplished, part Serbclever, part Bosniak funny; total and eleven or twelve years oldutter husband-material. In She is all he could possibly want in a phone call to his wife Mike suggested that perhaps Jasminka could come ; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and stay set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with them pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for a whileher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=rashbre1787636003|title=The TriangleGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=BrianIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn's trip t exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to the art gallery was a treattake an interest in her, courtesy of a private ticket from a friend and the white room she was much better flattered rather than the last gallery he'd visitedwary. It was, though, quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to be his last such visit as he her and by that time she was silently knifed obsessed by a professional hit manhim. His friends were stunnedAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, not just at looking after his death, but at interests on the way island and in particular in which it had come about. What could Brian have been doing to attract ''that'' sort of attention? Jake had given him the ticket and it dawned on him that he had been bar where all the target rather than Briangirls either worked or partied. Some recent events clicked into place…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425171893</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura SolomonAmanda Craig|title=An Imitation of LifeThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are introduced to Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the baby girl, Celia with a detailed, blowstate-byof-blow account of her dreadful physical condition, from her unusual eyes, her even more unusual teeth, her lumpy body and the ever-growing hump on her shouldernation novel. Forget There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the Elephant Manday and capture it, here we have elephant baby. Everything is stacked against her. She is abandoned by her mother, her father is unknowncrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. And as if all To say that wasn't enough to make you weep, she Amanda Craig is unceremoniously dumped on a doorstep - to die. But skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she doesn'ts practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives. And what an extraof her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out in, never making them ciphers for hersocial commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tamsin Reeves 152915118X|title=A Place of Safety|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=There are lots of reasons to take in a lodger for your spare room, but for Martha one of the best is to get one up on her recently departed scoundrel of an ex-husband. And it's not like her financial situation is looking too rosy since he left her for another woman – a woman who is also pregnant with his child. The fact that her lodger is a He, and that he's a Foreigner (and from Afghanistan, no less) is just the icing on the cake. Colin's going to be furious, and Martha can't wait.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849231370</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPineapple Street|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Comfort of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie 5)Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As always with Alexander McCall Smith''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, this fifth book in the Sunday Philosophy series benefits from being read in sequence with only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the previous titlestribe. One of The problem's exacerbated when the beautiful aspects of his writing is that his characters develop slowlyclan matriarch, gentlyTilda, over the series so although you could probably dive in here asks Cord and get a fair idea of his style you really should start at the beginning Sasha if they'd like to thoroughly enjoy move into the pleasure of an AMS readPineapple Street property. In this episode Isabel is busy taking care of her sonTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, Charliea street or so away, looking after her niece Catwhich they own. They won's delicatessent need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, editing the review so Sasha and struggling with her own personal fears over her relationship with JamieCord can move straight in. And she wouldnNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't be Isabel if she didnthe reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She't, somehow, get entangled s living in someone else's problems, someone else's life, and here she finds herself trapped into investigating their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the case of a doctor whose career has been ruinedGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120552</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt HiltonEmily Critchley|title=Dead Men's DustOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Joe Hunter helps people84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. That's However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what he doeshappened all that time ago. HeAfter 'seeing's been around Lucy in the high street, just as she was the block and last time she saw her, she starts to say that he has learned a trick or two along the way might be something find pockets of an understatementmemories coming back to her. No-one really knows much about Joe Hunter and certainly his And yet as she remembers the past , she is not something that many would be brave enough forgetting more and more in her day to poke around inday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340978236</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Donohue 0008506337|title=Angels of DestructionThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an opening chapter reminiscent of Cathyolder man'. Her parents worried that Richard's ghostly appearance at influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the window in [[Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte|Wuthering Heights]]event, widowed Margaret Quinn opens they eloped and Richard took her front door in away from the middle Isle of a wintry night Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a halfwell-frozenrespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, waif-like childImogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, Norah, who appears to have arrived out the family home on the Isle of nowhereWight. Lonely and withdrawn in Even then the wake of her daughter Ericadoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's disappearance many years earlier, Margaret takes mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in apparently-orphaned Norah, passing her off as her granddaughtercharge''. But Norah is no ordinary child…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086138</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Naseem Rakha 1914585402|title=The Crying TreeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Irene Stanley had lived in Illinois all her life, on I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a farm which had been in her family for generations and where the boundary couple of the property was the Mississippi river. She had friends, family years back and her church in the area remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it came as a shock when Nate came home one day and said that he was considering taking a job as a Deputy Sheriff in Oregon (that's pronounced ''Organ'' – only tourists say ''Or-ee-gon''). It wasn't long before they and their children, Shep and Bliss, made the long overland journey to their new home. Shep was a quiet boygripping, a talented musician but against his mother's expectations he settled into his new life well. Irene wasn't totally convincedemotionally wounding read, but accepted that life wasn't too bad for the family. That all changed when she and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was called home from work to find that Shep had been murderedI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230740847</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Johan Minto Lucy Ashe|title=The Virtuous SaintClara and Olivia|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Marcus Hoag has been searching for The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the lost Regula Monachorum of St Benedict for outside but not, we learn, on the last thirty five years and the fruits of his research are recorded in a notebook which he carries with himinside. And not on stage, either. HeBecause there's been searching for clues in stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the discovery of two previously unknown windows at his old universityclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, St Petera ''joie de vivre's in New York'. The difference between a hard-worker, sets him on and a journey to Englandstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955855756</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire Connor and G P Taylor Heather Fawcett|title=Rosie: Note to SelfEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of a five book deal Claire Connorfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, writing in partnership she is not so good with GP Taylorpeople. So when she finds herself far, brings us a modern romance based loosely on far North in the story small village of Ruth from Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the Bible. This village matriarch, she is total chick-litnot sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and from put her final investigations for her book back on the first few pages I thought it was just going to be a very light, funny romance storyright track. HoweverEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, the story quickly takes a depressing turn all charm and the rest of the book delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is as much an exploration of grief as it he here? What does he want? And what exactly is a romance novel.going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1850788332</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Audrey Niffenegger 1398515388|title=Her Fearful SymmetryThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Elspeth Noblin dies First of Leukemiaall, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, she leaves behind a strange bequest that will have dramatic in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and tragic consequencesutter devastation. She leaves her London flat The deaths were uncountable, and all the trappings loss of her life to livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the 'mirror' twins list of her own twin sister who currently live priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside Chicagoa convenience store. This is news to the twins who didn He wasn't even know that they had an aunt. The only condition of her legacy is that the twins, Julia and Valentina, have to live in the flat, which is adjacent to Highgate Cemetery, for a year before they can sell it. It is clear from dog person but the outset convenience store owner's comment that Elspeth has secrets about her relationship with her twin sister Edie, which she is keen he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to keep hidden from open his car door and Tamon the twins, but when it turns out that Elspeth hasn't quite left the apartment after her death, things get a whole lot messier for everyonedog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085611</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G Cottam Christopher Bowden|title=Dark EchoMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Rouen in September 1917Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a French detachment are guarding the Cathedral. Guarding it safe harbour and using it as a barracks little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and still doing their best it seems to treat him an obligation to find it as a house of God. After all, you cannot make a fortress out of a place designed to be welcoming. One night the fog descends, thick and eerie, and reminiscent of the gas attacks in the trenches.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340953896</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick Taylor Jennifer Mason|title=An Irish Country VillagePartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Barry Laverty is working for the olderHere at Bookbag Towers, and somewhat irascible Dr Fingal O'Reilly, in the fictional Ulster village of Ballybucklebo. They, their housekeeper Mrs Kinkaidwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and the residents of the village were introduced unintentional detective in the book [[Preposterous: An Irish Country Doctor Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Patrick TaylorJennifer Mason|An Irish Country DoctorPreposterous]], which I havenwhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity''t read, so it took me she sets her mind to solving a few chapters to get into this novelmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224024</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith Will Carver|title=The Lost Art of GratitudeDaves Next Door|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I should say to begin with that it would probably be tricky to leap into reading this series with this latest book. This is the sixth book Five strangers come together in the ''Sunday Philosophy Club'' series and returns us one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to the life of Isabel Dalhousie, our gentle philosophising heroinedetonate his vest on a London tube line. She is still living with her partnerAs their fates overlap, Jamie, and her son Charlie, editing her philosophy journal, and of course interfering in the lives of others. Her niece, Cat, has another dodgy boyfriend, this time a tightrope walker... Her 'enemy', Christopher Dove, story is causing more friction and somehow, at a toddler's birthday party, Isabel simply can't help herself and finds herself embroiled told in the woes of a previous foebackwards order, Minty Auchterlonie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700638</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Agnes Owens |title=The Complete Novellas|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Who is Agnes Owens? A Scottish author who portrays working class life from the nineteen forties and fifties. Now an octogenarian, apparently Agnes Owens started writing at leading up to the age of 58. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new edition, a companion volume to her short stories, published in 2008. I don't think you'll be disappointedfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt Dunn Jennifer Mason|title=The Good Bride GuidePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As he approaches ''A struggling poetry zine, a milestone birthdaymom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, Ben begins to think back on his old relationships. While none of them seemed right at a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the time2004 Olympics, hea women's not quite sure that track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the other option – his current single status – is really any better. With -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a good friend about to enter into life sentence in Alabama, an arranged marriageenigmatic signature, Ben has K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of the by cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this point predictable yet wacky idea that he needs the same thing – a nice young woman hand-picked for him by his parentsmystery story goes like this... After all, who knows him better than they do?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847395236</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Brownlee B0B2N7MVYM|title=BaitThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jake Moore was It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Flying Squad but a bullet put paid to his career and ten years later heCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's running minds. The world has barely had a game-fishing business on the Kenyan coastchance to breathe out. Times are hard and thereBut for Joe Marr, it's every chance not the missile crisis that 's at the business will fold unless he and front of his partner, Harry, can find the money to pay their billsmind. He's been convicted of murder. Some strange things are happening in With the game fishing business too – one current state of their number medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has died spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a mysterious explosion on relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his boat roommate, Mervyn, and the body learning to be wary of a man who shouldn't have been aboard has been washed up on the shoreMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749928840</amazonuk>
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